02 May 2017

Dining:

WETA’s “Neighborhood Eats” Starts 5/5, Wants Foodies for “Check, Please!”

Photo of Beuchert Saloon’s main dining room by María Helena Carey, via Instagram

Make sure you tune in to WETA starting Friday, May 5 at 8:30 p.m and watch Neighborhood Eats. The show aims to highlight the old stalwarts and the up-and-comers in our local restaurant scene.

The locales featured in Capitol Hill are Beuchert’s Saloon, Acqua al 2 and The Pretzel Bakery. All three have earned a place of honor in Capitol Hill lore, all the while providing distinctive offerings and great atmosphere. The Pretzel Bakery alone has revolutionized the after-school snack in our household, as well as the concept of DC pretzels. (Read our post about their birthday last week here.)

Recently, I was reminiscing about the not-so-distant past with some friends on Twitter. Mind you, at 11 years as a DC resident, some would say that I’m just a newcomer. However, I can still remember when patrons could smoke inside dining establishments all the time: a fact that, at least for me, ruined the taste of food. (If you’re one of those people who longs for the “good ol’ days” when you could smoke over your medium-well steak: Let’s never dine together.)

Anyway, the DC food scene has rebirthed from those fiery cigarette ashes and is thriving– especially on Capitol Hill and its surrounding areas. Whether you agree or not with the places that received Michelin Stars (and, lucky us, a couple in our neighborhood did), we are a long way away from food that is, well, in the words of one semi-famous curmudgeon, “relentlessly adequate.” The rest of the country has taken notice: Rose’s Luxury was awarded the 2015 best new restaurant award by Gourmet Magazine; It was also awarded one star by the Michelin guide. Sister restaurant Pineapple and Pearls was awarded two.

If you’re feeling generous about the Hill’s boundaries and are okay with including the Union Market/Florida Avenue Market area in our general area, Masseria was also awarded a star. Is it safe to say that we’ve arrived as a culinary destination? Well, at least we know we have a couple of places, “worth a detour,” to borrow the Michelin Guide’s turn of phrase.

And so, WETA is not just highlighting the beloved and tried-and-true: they have also found in DC a market for the series, “Check, Please!”

If you’re not familiar with the format, “Check, Please” is a peek at the restaurant scene from the point of view of local foodies/persons who love food and talk about it a lot but who bristle at the term. Diners visit a restaurant based on the anonymous recommendations made by two other diners and then share their impressions back at the studio. The series has been a hit in other markets with actual food scenes, such as Chicago –where it originated–  as well as San Francisco and….. Kansas City? Looks like after over 11 years on the air, Check Please finally deems the DC area worthy of a foodie show –and YOU can be a part of it.

If you think you have what it takes to be awesome on TV and talk about food, go to WETA’s audition page here: https://weta.org/tv/program/check-please/apply

Not-so-confidential to WETA: I recently applied but had no link showing what I look like on TV. Hey, WETA, if you’re listening, you can see me testifying angrily at a recent hearing. Click here and skip to 4:27! Just kidding. But kind of not.

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